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by tirsynni



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-16
Updated: 2012-09-16
Packaged: 2017-11-14 09:42:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/513891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tirsynni/pseuds/tirsynni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With both of his boys missing, John could only follow the bloody writing on the wall to an unknown city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

John Winchester returned to the motel to find both of his children gone. Blood glittered on the wall, spelling out directions and an unfamiliar city name.  
  
John grabbed his bags and left.  
  
The directions led him down a road he didn’t remember seeing before, and he couldn’t find it on any map. The grass grew grey; the fog darkened and thickened. It was a trap, and he was walking into it with eyes wide shut.  
  
The sign declaring the city’s limits rose like a tombstone. John thought he saw a handprint below the second word in the name. He kept driving until he couldn’t. His truck stuttered and stopped as he passed the first buildings, all rising tall and grey above him. He looked and his gas tank read half-empty. John grabbed his bag, threw it over his shoulder, pulled out his rifle, and stepped onto the empty road.  
  
John passed no other cars. He saw no one but swore he heard whispers. He looked into the sky and thought he saw black shadows fly above. Crows, maybe? He kept moving.  
  
The windows of the buildings felt like eyes on him. He kept an eye out but saw no telltale movement. He heard laughter behind him but when he looked, no one was there. He backtracked anyway, ears listening for more laughter.  
  
Instead, John saw a school. An iron gate imprisoned the two story brick building. Markings that almost looked like red chalk led up the sidewalk to the entrance. It reminded him of Sam and Dean’s last school, where Sam found his first girlfriend and Dean was supposed to graduate.  
  
There had been suspicious deaths, all involving fire, to the south. They had left.  
  
John gripped his gun and walked up the sidewalk. The red marks looked strange, familiar, but he couldn’t place them. He would come back and copy them into his notebook.  
  
More laughter and triumph thrilled through him for a moment. Another hunt and he was a damned fine hunter. He would find his boys and punish them for dropping their guards enough to be taken. He would kill the sick sonunvabitch to started this mess. Then he could return to his primary mission.  
  
Easy.  
  
The halls were empty. More red scribbles lined the walls, the lockers. Marks marred the floor, black streaks that tickled the back of John’s mind. A classroom door was open just a hair before him. John took it as an invitation and opened it the rest of the way.  
  
No more laughter, only the normal scratch of pen on paper. The desks were empty. A coffee cup sat on the teacher’s desk. Drawings and scribbles covered the chalkboard. A dark-haired child sat at the back of the room. John crept toward him. He glanced at the coffee mug as he passed it. Tiny black bugs crawled through the sludge at the bottom. He grimaced and kept walking.  
  
“Hey, kid?” His voice sounded loud. He cleared his throat. “What’s your name?”  
  
The child didn’t look up. Dark hair covered his face. His hand kept moving over the paper.  
  
John was almost on top of him now. “Kid?” he called again, and then he saw the drawing on the paper.  
  
Mary’s beautiful face stared back up at him, mouth open in a terrified scream.  
  
John cursed and reached for the child. The child looked up.  
  
“Hi, Daddy,” Sammy said, blood streaming from his smiling mouth.  
  
The paper exploded into flames. John shouted and reached for Sammy, but the fire already tore through him. Sammy never stopped smiling even as the force of the flames pushed John back, back…  
  
And out of the room.  
  
The door swung shut, leaving only a crack open.  
  
His heart pounding, John forced himself to peek into the room again. The dark-haired child sat at the back of the class, calmly scribbling onto the paper. There was no sign of the fire.  
  
John’s hands shook on his gun. Laughter again, from further down the hallway. Rage rose in him, familiar and comforting. This was just some sick Trickster’s game. He had enough in his bag to deal with it.  
  
Letting his fury roil through him, John resumed walking down the hall.  
  
No more open doors. The windows were blackened, some as if they had been colored in with a child’s hasty marker, others like the glass had been warped by fire. All the while, someone laughed. It was soft and high and inhuman.  
  
Lockers lined the next hall. A tall youth fiddled with one, his back to John. John knew what to expect now. He recognized the broad shoulders and slender hips, the jacket that didn’t fit quite right yet. It probably wasn’t Dean, just like that creature behind him wasn’t Sammy. He still couldn’t bring himself to raise his gun.  
  
“Dean?” he called. The familiar figure didn’t turn. John walked forward, rifle steady in his hands and pointed at the floor. A little closer, he could see something dripping out of the locker, a dark pool by black boots.  
  
“Dean?” he called again, mere yards from his eldest child. Now the teenager turned, stepping away from the locker.  
  
Even after seeing the creature masquerade as Sammy, even after having an idea of what to suspect, John flinched back like someone had punched him. Dean didn’t notice. Dean smiled warmly at him, the same smile he greeted John with after a long hunting trip.  
  
“Welcome home, Dad,” he said, and John didn’t know how the boy spoke with his chest a mess of bone and blood. Blood dripped from his stomach like claws had scraped him up.  
  
It looked like something had tried to tear at Dean’s heart.  
  
Dean kept smiling, blood making his full lips a sickly red.  
  
Pictures filled the locker, smiling faces scratched with nails, their edges burnt and curled. Notes and crimson words covered the rest, leading down, down…  
  
To John’s own decapitated head.  
  
His own blood streamed from the locker, pooling at Dean’s feet.  
  
Trembling, John looked up to see Dean still smiling at him. He refused to let some Trickster mock him like this. “Where are my boys?” he whispered.  
  
Smiling, smiling, Dean’s white white teeth red. “Welcome home,” he said, and John realized he was speaking to something behind him.  
  
John spun, his rifle coming up.  
  
An empty hallway.  
  
John turned back around.  
  
An empty hallway. All the lockers were shut.  
  
He exhaled shakily and kept going. His boys, his real children, were in here somewhere. He just needed to find them.  
  
He thought he heard more laughter, but the more he listened, the more John thought someone was crying.  
  
xoxoxox  
  
“Dude, when his dad coming home?” Sam grumbled. Dean didn’t know why he was whining so much. Just yesterday he had been thrilled that he was able to finish his science project without Dad interrupting.  
  
Dean sighed and looked out the window. He could have sworn that he heard the Impala earlier. “I don’t know. Soon.”  
  
When he had stepped outside to look for the Impala, the motel’s maintenance man had grinned at him and offered him some candy. _Oh, no, no car had driven anywhere by here. Want some suckers for you and your brother? I always have plenty._  
  
Dean shook his head and kept watching. Their dad still had a couple more days before the deadline, and then Dean would call Pastor Jim. Dad would be back before then, though.  
  
Dad always came home.  



End file.
